


There is no love in NY

by BloodyButterfly



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Blood, Death, Discrimination, Drug Abuse, Forced Prostitution, Human AU, Human Trafficking, Illegal Fighting, Induced Addictions, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Organized Crime, Underage Exploitation, Urban Violence, criminality, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyButterfly/pseuds/BloodyButterfly
Summary: Their meeting was a casualty, one and another of life's coincidences. Had them only known what it meant sooner, had them only predicted the outcomes of a single act, a single mistake and its consequences, its demanded sacrifices, and perhaps they’d chosen to never meet. And perhaps there’d be no story to tell.But if there were anything they’d known from the beginning, it was that every gaze exchanged and every moment shared, and every single smile and every tear they shed -and everything else, everything of the in-betweens- it’d all eventually be swallowed, eventually be consumed, it’d all be devoured by that city, a city that didn’t know how to love.





	1. Chapter One: Gasoline

The first thing Alfred ever really felt for him was lust. It was a prompt, fulminating feeling that immediately threatened to break his composure -it made him blush deep red under flickering lamppost lights, a sudden warmth spreading down his neck despite the after dark chill.

With his thumbs hooked to his worn-out jeans' loops, leaning back into the dirty brick wall of an awfully narrow alleyway and with his ragged blue bag hanging from one shoulder, it was when Alfred first caught sight of him. 

He hadn’t really meant to, it was coincidental, inadvertent that he raised his head from the door to the corner, from the handle to the face of a stranger. What caused his gaze to linger, his eyes to widen and his cheeks to flush crimson, however, was everything but an accident. 

The man wore tight leather that hugged his legs perfectly, accentuating his every curve, ripped on his knees, tore on his thighs, showing just so much as to leave the rest to imagination. His blood red shirt boasted a low V cut, exposing just enough to make Alfred bashfully look away. His body was shapely slender, bearing slim waist, delicate shoulders and doll-like complexion. Not at all what one would've expected from a man; not at all what Alfred would've expected to make his breath stutter.

Shame and a pressing heat overtook his senses as his eyes drunk from the sight of that man, it seemed to intoxicate him in an instant addiction, an immediate abrasion. It wasn't ever like this before, no other had managed to haul such strong reaction out the blond teenager, but there was just something about that man that drew him in, captivated him, called out for his gaze, his attention.

The image of those dull emerald eyes under silky golden bangs was all too mesmerizing, too magnetic and nearly impossible to look away from. Alfred felt his heart clench tight in a rush of anxiety and some dissented guilt. The latter burned cold, screeched at him to fend off, the same dull ache buried deep within his chest, pressuring his lungs through his ribcage as if trying to squeeze the oxygen out.

His attraction towards men was never something he could entirely come to terms with. His devout family raised him in a strict, regressive mindset that was triggering to that very day, binding him to principles New York's nightfall had long since forgotten. It was infused profoundly within him, inherent of his mentality, seemingly impossible to completely dissociate from.

Over the years many of his ideals changed, so much so that religion itself lost its original significance in his life, but the primal lessons lingered down his psyche, refusing to leave for good. He wasn't faithful to any more gods, yet insistent voices within him still screamed rights and wrongs, his nerves still cried out in revulsion at unholy thoughts and wants, aversion overtaking his body and clouding his judgment: no matter the reason behind it, it simply felt wrong to him in an intimate level.

He learned to accept it -in his line of work, living in the nights of a big city, he witnessed more things like that than most people would anywhere else, and it’d only taken a couple of days for him to understand it.

Night was a time for lust and wickedness to swirl around dangerous streets, tucked into treacherous alleyways, hidden in plain sight right under the thin veil of legality. In every block another venture, the shadows and voices that bounced and whispered over cement, cemeteries; the trades and sharp looks, the laughs, the screams, the cold world of dark nights in that jungle of concrete. 

They were just another element of the usual scenario, accessories hooked to the arms of pimps and businessmen, pretty toys that walked around and waited to be given use. Both men and women paced alone in every crossroad, their heels clinked on asphalt as they waited in the cold, wearing little to protect them from the bite of dew. They were products in display, expecting someone to make use of them -and there, where everyone wanted something, every body had a price, all you had to do was ask how much.

He saw them often. Rent boys, street girls standing on their designated points in clothes too short, just like him -just like him. 

(And god, Alfred almost lost himself in the way he swayed his hips, hands on his waist as he paced over high-heels, every movement incredibly deliberate, smooth, provocative -and familiar, much too experienced) 

They all stared at him with apathetic condescendence, just like every other gaze in that city, a mirror of every other thing, reflecting clearly the misery of their condition. They offered fake smiles, eyes shining in fabricated wills, hiding behind walls the emptiness shared underneath; and they offered, always offered -the ones who had nothing, they offered, they offered everything.

But he was different -he was, Alfred knew so, he saw it. In those dead eyes he found emeralds glinting, ravenous, poisonous green corroding the eyes of anyone who dared to look too closely. Dangerous, vicious will rested within languid orbs, waiting for the first drop of gasoline to burst into a wild fire, insidiously volatile.

(Dangerous, so very dangerous and yet too unbearably inviting, too astonishingly irresistible for him to simply turn away from)

Alfred recognized revolt even in his impotence, disdain underlaying that torpid facade. So easy, so clearly, so enthralling. He had to read between the lines, devote his undivided attention to catch onto signals no other could've seen with ease. And yet it seemed to unravel slowly before his gaze, sharp, corroding, luring him in; that black hole of jade, swirling with a gravity of its own, making Alfred's thoughts orbit around him, his body itch to take after, step just a little closer.

When he thought back to that day, what was to happen later on always struck him as inevitable. From the moment he first laid his eyes on Arthur, his destiny was set on that track. No regretting, no looking back: it had simply been unpreventable.


	2. Chapter Two: Blue Devils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey people who might be reading this! ´･ᴗ･` Hope you're all having a wonderful day today already!  
> So okay, second chapter, this is where we finish off the introductions. Next chapter will probably be longer -we'll get into the story for real then- but I hope you enjoy this one for now.
> 
> (Oh, and before I forget, I should be warning y'all that I might update the tags as the story progresses. I'll warn in the beginning of every chapter if I do, so please check the notes before reading (^○^))

 "You're okay, keep breathing. I'm the only one with you now. Focus on my voice, you can do that, right?"

There were muffled shrieks, delirious whispers echoing through the walls, an unintelligible babbling. From where he stood Arthur could hear his teeth clinking, his laboured breathing, the trashing of his body against the wall, feet thumping the floor, nails digging into the arms that tried to hold him still. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t.

Shadows fell upon every corner of the room, cast from over the small spot by the parapet Arthur sat over only to stretch thicker into the barren flooring, making is almost impossible to distinguish the two figures huddled on the corner -still he didn’t bother looking back, knowing what he’d find behind him, just that same old scene.

Arthur took a long pull from the cigarette, dull gaze following as a trail of white smoke slipped past his lips and swirled out the windowsill in the cold air. Above him there were no stars, no clouds, nothing but buildings and concrete -the heavy air, thick with pollution, had been hard to breathe at first, now it was only another thing he’d grown accustomed to, another way for that city to try and suffocate him.

_The poison oozes, permeates everything, every breath is another lungful of bitter venom._

"I promise you, they're not here, it's all in your head. Hold onto me, it'll pass, it'll be gone soon." Lukas' stoic voice uttered, hints of annoyance and fatigue tinging every word, an undeniable bitterness underlying it all.

Those words he'd said way too many times, Arthur knew, lacked the vigour of a plea; almost mechanical sentences as they now were, they’d never get through. Another vice, just another one. At this point it didn’t matter, stopping was never really an option anyway -it’d never been.

To his voice there was more trashing. The sound of nails racking flesh no less aggravating. Arthur felt his skin crawling.

"No, no! Stop it! Stop. It. You're hurting yourself! If you just kept your hands-... Fuck!" Lukas swung his body back against the wall, still holding those arms in a tight grip. He turned to the window, regarding Arthur angrily, impatiently, "Could you at least fucking try to help me hold him down?"

_Angry_ -he thought, studying his features- _impatient,_ but also tired, but also fatigued and exasperated and beat, thoroughly beat.

Lukas Bondevik was a Norwegian man of piercing violet eyes, owner of a glance much too sharp and cold, edged just enough to send chills down Arthur’s spine. His thin, ashen blond hair was pulled back on the side by a little upside-down cross shaped pin, his skinny form sheathed by the oversized shirt he wore to sleep-…

_(The only one left)_

-…And despite everything his stance was no less intense, no less firm or demanding. It was a quality, Arthur thought, to be so composed, so dignified, but then again, it only ever served that single purpose; it was just another mean to no fruitful end.

The British man pressed the cigarette to the wooden frame of the window, sighting before getting up and pacing towards the two men shrunk on the wall.

Lovino fought against his Lukas’ hold, amber eyes blown wide, psychosis overlaying any reason within his gaze, making his picture one of a perfectly deranged paranoid. His entire body seemed to spasm in fury, skin burning hot, frantic movements violent to the point of bruising -bruising himself, himself and Lukas.

He muttered under his breath, hissed and howled unintelligible sounds, trepid, frightened screeching was all that could be understood from the incoherent bundle of syllables, the man too lost in another one of his manias to bother with making sense. His twiggy arms were littered with bloodied marks, his barren teeth yellowed out and rotting, lanky limbs attempting to brawl off the unsparing constraints with psychotic impetus.

Arthur didn’t hesitate before dropping to his knees and closing his hands around the Italian man’s ankles, pinning them to the floor. Lovino screamed, trying to kick him, to get him away, but he only held him tighter, knowing it’d be just some minutes more until it ended, until it ended again.

In his customary internal monologue, Arthur hoped the fit wouldn’t evolve into another seizure, another concussion, another overdose; and as he stared into those empty eyes and held onto Lovino's convulsing body, that same phrase echoed in his head.

_(You don't have to die to see God…)_

_(You don't have to die to see-…)_

_(You don’t have to die-…)_

 

* * *

 

Blue and red under streetlights.

For the second time stopped, that was all Arthur remembered to see.

He could recall thinking of how impossibly blue were the eyes that stared up at him, how they'd widened at his image in some strange sort of recognition, how they seemed electric, pulsing with an ardour Arthur couldn’t recall seeing anywhere else.

Blue, blue and then red, scarlet red was the blood that tickled down the boy's nose and seeped through his plump lips, the crimson that dripped down the side of his head over pallid skin just along the curve of his freckled cheeks, just by his wide, glossy sapphires.

He seemed stunned, too dumbstruck to react, confused and disoriented and, for the second time stopped, Arthur had an instant to regret. Regret stepping forward, regret walking into that dark alley, regret seeing and reaching for that man, answering to his morbid curiosity and being caught in the act when said man suddenly jolted aware to catch the hand that loomed over his head. Had the brit not been so shocked with the bolting reflex and he’d never even looked into those stupefied eyes that now pierced right through him. Perhaps it would’ve been better if he hadn’t. Perhaps that had been just another trigger -but of course he wouldn’t know it, especially then.

Arthur took little notice of the sirens that echoed in the distance -sirens, sirens, why were there always sirens? - and the engine of cars that rumbled, the screeching of tires over asphalt, the voices that whispered, resonated, and the lights and shadows that danced over their heads. And then there was the solid grip on his wrist that made reality call back to him, the warmth of rough fingers that tightened on his arm, almost as if fearful he'd disappear into thin air the moment they let go; and so Arthur was back on Earth, yanking back his elbow, shielding his arm to his chest as though afraid it’d be seized by those foreign hands.

That was how the spell was broken and time began to move forth once over, Arthur blinked and stepped back, away, ridding himself of the influence of those magnetic gaze. Even by when he recomposed, finding back his voice, all the younger man did was stare at him in a trance, still trapped with Arthur on his focus.

He swallowed, feeling as though caught under a spotlight, wet his lips and decided to break the silence.

"You should probably go home, kid." Was all Arthur could think of saying.

"Who... Who are-…?" Came the hoarse response, a couple seconds after.

"No one." Artur was quick to dismiss, frowning slightly upon a closer inspection of the man’s ragged up clothes, "You've gotten yourself in quite some trouble, haven't you? Bet you don't want whoever did this coming back here to get you so, if you feel like taking anyone’s advice, I'd say you should get the fuck out of here soon enough."

That was enough, it was just a warning, a fair one, that excused his senseless impulse. He didn’t need to say anything else.

Arthur turned his back to the figure of that beat-up child and made to walk away.

"No, wait!" The stranger chided, nearly panicked, reaching for him again and managing to grab the hem of his shirt, "What's your name?"

The look on British man's face was cold as he looked back. His name, his name… What did it matter? The luxury of being called by a name wasn’t something Arthur could afford. He was just another one of them in the end. All that mattered was his role, his label, what he was paid to do -surely not who he was.  

"Go home, boy.” Was his only answer as he easily brushed his insistent hold to the side and left, finally, riding himself of another bad influence.

He didn’t turn back again, not even to check if the lad had followed his poor advice. The night was too cold for him to linger, the sounds too loud, the morning to close for him to risk exposing himself to the sunlight, to the vigilant eyes that pretended not to see him when it was dark. It didn’t keep his thoughts away, however, as he wandered back alone to the flat.

The unusual sight, the curled-up form by a dark alley, the infantile expression on those wounded features and the brightness in taht stare, the electricity within those round orbs and their unexpectedly rough grasp… For whichever reason, they amused, intrigued, maybe even enchanted Arthur, even if only a little. There was only one conclusion, one thing he could say:

That boy wouldn’t last, he thought, he _knew_.

_(Wide blue eyes and golden hair and blood on his freckled cheeks – he looked so pretty, so innocent)_

Pretty things were always broken; Innocent things could never survive in that place.

_(_ _So surely it wouldn’t be long before he was wholly, entirely-…)_

Arthur licked his lips.

_(Consumed.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone who's read it this far (๑>ᴗ<๑) Hope you enjoyed it, but even if you didn't, please leave some feedback. Anything you send me will be highly appreciated!
> 
> (P.S. I hope the cut wasn't too out of place (ﾟヘﾟ) it's kind of the idea, but I hope it didn't get confusing to anyone reading -I'm sorry if it did (☍﹏⁰), I'll get things more structured from now on)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everybody! Thank you very much for reading and I hope you've liked the chapter! I never really post the things I write, thus feedback is really important to me, so please share your thoughts on the comments (or through PM if you prefer) even if you disliked it -just please say what you think, I don't bite \\(*~*)/
> 
> (Also also whoever gets the reference in the title of the fic gets a drabble/oneshot of your choice - make your guesses on the comments or again through PM (I suspect no one will get it, but it's worth the try XD )


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